2017, week 2 – STRIKES

Thanks for posting, Martyn. This will be a week of misery and suffering for millions of people. If someone loses their job through being unable to get to work, and I’m guessing there are many such people, I just don’t know what to say – except I really sympathize with your suggestion, “IMHO…. employees should not have the power to hold a region to ransom…”.

You said you’re extending your “Xmas break by a week”, excellent idea. I wouldn’t like to be anywhere near London this week.

I struggle with the whole “Strike” thing……..

On one hand , I’m concerned about the continual erosion of workers’ rights, and the acceptance by many, mostly well off people that don’t fall into Theresa May’s JAM jar or whatever acronym that might emerge that are in total denial that the continued salary suppression of the majority of the UK’s wage earners will ultimately be more disastrous for UK PLC than Brexit.

On the other hand, groups of people who stubbornly refuse to accept that’s its 2017 and new business practices can be beneficial to all, and simply accept a negative approach to progress and are willing to disadvantage others also get my back up.

So for me, each action has to be taken in isolation. And sadly for exactly the same reason every strike nowadays is defined by 2 words ………. Bullying intransigence!

In the case of BA, the immorally overpaid execs at IAG/BA are in the position of power and can turf it out, regardless of the negative impact on the brand, workforce or the travelling public.
Roll reverse and in the case of Southern rail, it’s the travelling public who are treated with utter contempt, and worse the fat cats at Southern , probably don’t care because it’s deemed that the strikers are the bullies in this dispute.

All very sad, especially when as a nation you’d think we’d have evolved our industrial relationships from the dark days of the 70’s and 80’s…….,

I have my doubts in many strikes if the unions actually have the interests of their members as their first priority. My experience of dealing with some unions is that the political aims of the union are more important than the aims of their members, and their members are merely pawns in a higher political game. Too often I have seen union members lied to by their union officials and they then go on a strike they are led to believe they can win, when the union knows all along it cannot possibly win.

Surely someone can confirm the BA crew are being paid what they were promised/offered or not?

As part (I believe a reasonably significant amount) is performance based, I’m not sure how one could do that.